Review of Kick-Ass: The Board Game

Blurb from the publisher: 'Kick-Ass: Murderous thug or city savior? - Editorial by Grace Grayson

Every round, new Events are revealed, interrupting the Heroes' daily routines. The Heroes must complete at least 3 Events if they want to reveal the Boss' Final Plot! Then, it's up to them to prevent the Villain from fulfilling their Evil Plan!'

What you get: Your EUR 60 or equivalent will buy you Kick-Ass: The Board Game, a cooperative board game with deck-building and worker placement elements for one to four players that lasts around 90 minutes. The board game is based on Kick-Ass, the comic first published by Marvel back in the distant 2008.

In addition to the 32-page rulebook that can also be found on the publisher's website, the game contains the following: one Map Board, 7 Hero Dashboards, 7 Hero miniatures, 27 Minion miniatures, 5 Boss Villain miniatures, one Final Plot Mini Boss, 8 Red Attack dice, 8 Blue Defense dice, 1 Black Faint die, 5 Mini Boss miniatures, 27 plastic Counter Bases, 2 Incoming Tracks, one Final Plot track, 5 Final Plot cards, 20 Boss Event cards, 96 Activation cards, 20 Minion Spawn cards, 12 Hardship cards, 31 Event cards, 6 Boss Combat cards, 55 Item cards, one Incoming Track token, one Round Track token, 3 Shop Track tokens, 6 Inactive Timer tokens, 8 Red Mist Final Plot tokens, one Docks token, 24 Interest tokens, 8 Protection tokens, 45 Dollar tokens, 12 Don Genovese Final Plot tokens, 7 Final Plot Track tokens, 16 Stats tokens, 4 Social Media Tracker tokens, 4 Happiness Tracker tokens, 4 Life Points Tracker tokens, and 4 Strength Tracker tokens.

Gameplay: The game takes place in New York, which is divided in eight districts. Each player starts with one of seven heroes like Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, and Big Daddy. Each of them has a different starting point when it comes to happiness, social media presence etc. Each has a different number of hit points and activates special powers at different times depending on how advanced he gets in strength or in social media. Each also receives a unique special ability when he maxes out his social media presence.

The game is played over a maximum of nine rounds. The objective is to successfully complete the game's final plot before the end of round nine. The players might however lose earlier if four Events have matured or if they can't place any more minions to City Hall because the place is overflowing with them.

Each round is comprised of four phases.

In the Event Phase, the Event cards already on the board progress and more of them are being drawn. When the Event is on the third space of the row and slides, the Villain successfully completes its plan and triggers its maturation effect. These are small missions of sorts where the heroes will have to eliminate baddies, gather money, remove all tokens through a particular process etc. If this is done, the heroes are rewarded. If however the card is not taken care of and the maturation effect applies, the players face consequences like reduced happiness, less fans in social media, less money etc.

The Day Phase is played over three equal segments, namely morning, afternoon and night. Players collectively do the following in each of the segments: draw a minion span card, apply it, and select Activation cards from their hands. The minion might have a special effect and will indicate the districts it will spawn into. In addition to normal minions super minions also exist. As expected, they are harder to defeat. Activation cards are played simultaneously. There are three types of cards, relating to the ordinary things heroes do like going to school, the extraordinary ones, as well as those that will only happen once the characters become famous. They state a theme, how much the hero can move, effects (like money, social media, time etc) and the district they can be played from. Once played, cards are resolved in the order the players want them to in order to kick as much ass as possible on the board. Cleaning up districts from bad guys grants bonuses like less baddies on the board, more happiness, first aid etc. When a battle takes place all the minions in the district are powered up. The Hero forms his dice pool depending on his Strength, Items, and the card he just played, if relevant. Both attack and defense dice are custom made, with a probability of success at 50%. There is also a 1/6 chance of additional things happening due to the items the heroes carry. Damage must be dealt all at once, otherwise minions will stay in the board to be fought again at a later time. Heroes do not need to fight alone, they can gang up on the baddies by rolling all their dice for a combined result. If a hero's life reaches zero, he faints and restarts from the hospital district. However his Happiness will take a serious hit, and the Hero might gain a hardship. Hardships include conditions like paranoia, alcoholism and laziness, and overall make it harder for the Hero to operate. As an example, he might no longer be able to gang up with others, he might lose money every time that 1/6 comes on the dice etc.

In order to win the game the players must first reveal the Final Plot. The players might decide which plot (and which subsequent villain) they wish to fight, or they can allow Lady Luck to decide for them. There are five different plots featuring enemies like the Red Mist and the Mother Fucker. Each has a different difficulty setting (ranging from easy to very hard), different powers and rules etc.

The Sleep Phase is played immediately after the three morning, afternoon and night segments. This is an administrative phase where the board and the dashboards are checked for certain events (e.g. hardships activating, the Even cards producing results etc). Most importantly, the final plot might come to be revealed if the Heroes have already successfully completed three Events.

The Refresh Phase is another upkeep Phase where the players refresh their Activation cards, acquire new cards, reveal new items etc.

The strong points: Kick-Ass: The Board Game is what happens when the designers take the initial subject matter seriously. The cards, as well as the rulebook, are full of panels pointing out straight towards the comic, with imagery and texts that will convince even the most demanding Kick-Ass fan that this game has done its homework.

As expected, the mechanics evolve around non-super heroes beating up bad guys in different parts of New York. How is that different from super heroes beating up bad guys in different parts of New York? Easy: the Heroes are hardly efficient, even when they actually get good at things. Unless you get impossibly lucky at the beginning, you will get your fair share of a beating more often than not. Forget any kind of heroic gung-ho bullshit like hangin' out and fightin' crime. Many of your plays will revolve around personal development like making money from low-end jobs, increasing your media presence, etc. You will also get to beat random baddies up, but you will need to find a balance between the two. Balance does not relate only to how fast you wish to upgrade; it also has to do with the game's internal timer. You'd better unveil the plot sooner than later, lest you find yourself losing on the last roll of the last round. Don't forget that the dice are practically stacked against you, with a probability of only 50% per die which simply does not improve. You only get more dice to roll if you are doing well, you don't receive guaranteed successes. Thus, you need to beat up some low life minions first, in order to see your strength and social media presence increase, so that you unlock extra powers. The icing on the cake comes when your hero reaches his absolute maximum on media presence, becomes famous and receives a power that only he has access to. What better than eliminating minions simply because you enter a district, or healing yourself and your comrades automatically? Until you reach that point however expect to be on the receiving end of the stick.

The dynamics and psychology around the table are very colourful. Expect a lot of swearing, especially when you play with people knowledgeable of the comic. How can I put it gently? Pandemic will never create the responses that Kick-Ass: The Board Game does, and I am not talking only about the hoody hoos when things go well. I am also talking about the trash talking from player to player (even though they are on the same team!) when things go wrong, or the moments of consternation when nobody has a good idea of how to proceed. It makes sense, psychologically speaking. Beating people up in most minds comes out as a more understood and involved experience than searching for cures in the near future. I may not be happy that this is the case, yet this is the case.

I enjoyed many aspects of the design, like the rotation of the minions, and the principles behind the Event cards. They all create urgent matters that the players need to address, true to the game's lore however one cannot be everywhere at the same time. Choose what you do and what you neglect wisely, lest the matured events start piling on you. After all, it is possible to lose the game without even revealing the final plot.

The game is hard, very hard at times, something that makes it thematically even more successful. The fluff is basic, you are beating up people time after time after all. Yet, when compared to more complex things like the Thunderbirds game line or the Pandemic game line Kick-Ass: The Board Game comes out as mesmerizing in its no-nonsense approach. You are beating up people, and you have to get better fast, very fast. Anybody who has played a proto-RPG knows exactly what this is about.

The game is extremely replayable, and I am not talking just about the five different baddies at the end of the show. A lot depends on the cards and the dice rolling, of course, it is however susceptible to planning both on a personal as well as a team level. What is better than kicking ass? Kicking more ass, single-handedly or collectively. And to do that, you need an improved dashboard and a good deck, to start with.

The production values are very high, even though high. The colourful miniatures look fantastic. Their bright, almost toxic colours are full of theme for a (non-)super hero game, while the sculpts are as good as CMON can make them. The box uses a plastic insert that is fit for purpose, protecting all your minis, while at the same time closing tightly. Unfortunately, it works well only for the minis and not for much else; keep on reading.

The weak points: The game is hard! I don't mean it as a bad thing, I like a challenge. It is just a fair warning in order not to be disappointed when you get your ass handed down to you once, twice, or half a dozen times before you prevail. It might have been contrary to the Kick-Ass theme to have the characters start with a special ability, I am wondering however whether the famous ability, coming only when maxing out the social media, comes out as too little too late. No to changing the feeling of the game, yes to additional variety and customization.

The game is dependent on dice, thus it is random to a large extent, and especially taking the custom dice distribution into account. If you don't like either, well, there is not much you can do form about the former. The latter however can be house-ruled with standard six-siders and a different distribution.

True to the spirit of the comics, there is some swearing around (a few fucks here and there, as well as the heroes' and villains' names which include swear words). I don't mind whatsoever. When somebody buys this he is fully aware that it is not 100% kid friendly. I wouldn't have a problem personally playing it with young adults to be honest. Frankly, there is much, much worse out there.

The game is easy, yet the rulebook could have been better written. Some instructions are at the wrong place, gameplay could have been explained more concisely before entering the details of this and that etc. I am not so sure I would have been able to get as easy into the theme if I did not know of the comics and the movies.

Another game with a totally random card size, at least for some of its cards. 80 x 120 cm, seriously? Most game shops do not stock such sleeve sizes. Even worse, there is hardly any space in the box if you sleeve your cards. What madness is this? One day a production specialist will have to explain this to me: How can the publisher care as much for this minis, and not facilitate the purchaser when it comes to the cards at all?

Conclusion: Kick-Ass: The Board Game resoundingly succeeds in bringing forth the feeling of the comic while fielding a solid game. It offers an engrossing, hard challenge that when tackled successfully leads to happiness (and silliness) that few games provoke. I have this feeling that because it is a licensed game people might overlook it. Don't; I recommend giving it a try, especially if you are well-predisposed towards resolution mechanisms involving dice-rolling.

For more info on Kick-Ass: The Board Game as well as CMON, visit its website at www.cmon.com.

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